BB1 - 40+ 4/5

What a beautiful day for a race. I miscalculated how long it would take to get there, so I showed up at 9:30am for a 12:35 start… oops… I decided to walk up and watch the early races go by. I was standing there and the cat 3 group came rolling by with a bunch of stragglers coming up after the main pack. It seemed odd to have so many guys trickling through, but I figured “oh well”.. Then John O’brien came up and I started pitching him some crap until I noticed he was holding his arm funny. Turns out there was a massive crash at the start/finish line and John was caught up in it and went down re-injuring his shoulder. I stood there for a while watching the carnage roll up and eventually walked back down and gave John some Advil… There was at least a broken collar and a broken wrist along with all the other road rash and destroyed equipment. Here’s hoping everyone heals fast…

 So, my race. There were about 40 starters or so and a couple of teams had 4 or 5 guys in the race so I figured I’d sit in and see what they did. For the first couple of laps it was pretty much business as usual. Then part way around the second lap a guy soloed off the front. I figured he wouldn’t last out there for 2+ laps so I wasn’t too worried about it. I’m guessing everyone else thought the same ’cause we all just let him go. We were told that he had a minute on us starting the last lap. Since I was riding solo, and there were a couple of teams with numbers, I was determined to let them do the chasing, unfortunately none of them did. Nick (Bike Tires Direct) tried a solo bridge, but no one was letting another break get away and he was eventually reeled back in.

As we were approaching the big hill for the last time, I was trying to position myself up near the front to cover anything that might go on the hill. Sure enough, Nick and his teammate fly up the left hand side and go. Another guy took off with them and four of us were trying to catch them. We crested the hill not too far back and started heading down to the next little right hand climb. I got on the front of our group just about as we caught the initial break and we all climbed up that little hill together. It started to slack off a bit when we hit the flat up there and I figured no way am I going to let up now, so I got on front and drilled it as hard as I could. Part way down the final descent a guy came up past me and pulled in front. Iwas pretty thankful for the rest and was able to recuperate a little bit. Just before the right hander across the bridge, a couple of guys started coming by on my left. I swung around the guy ahead of me and was with those two as we hit the last little kicker up to the 200 meter line. We gave it everything we had up the roller and then whatever I had left down to the finish. I kept waiting for guys to stream past me, but no one did. So, I ended up 3rd in the field sprint and fourth overall. The guy who won the field sprint took his hands off the bars and saluted as he crossed the line, but I think they’ll just warn him. He didn’t seem like he was doing anything dangerous to me, but who knows. 

They’ve fixed some pavement out there and they are planning on racing in the opposite direction for BB2. I’ve never raced it going the other way, so this should be interesting.

Edit:  It looks like we caught the solo breakaway and I just didn’t know it. So I ended up third after all… :) 

Dean